Still Watching the Skies: Episode 38 “Hardware”

Nat, Cody, and Robert take a look this month at Richard Stanley’s grimy tale of future shock HARDWARE.

HARDWARE debuted in 1990. HARDWARE is an adaptation of a story appearing in British comics magazine 2000 A.D. entitled SHOK! by Steve McManus and Kevin O’Neill. A soldier of a post apocalyptic future acquires the head of a new prototype war android, the Mark 13, and brings it back as a gift to his artist girlfriend. Things go bad from there as the robot proves to still be alive and following its programming.

With a rock and roll soundtrack and a vision of a grimy future, HARDWARE was a minor hit back in 1990. It propelled Richard Stanley to more films and eventually the catastrophic ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU.

We discuss HARDWARE for a long time in this episode; its grimy vision of the future, its overtly sleazy aspects, its gore, and the cast in general. The film is definitely of two parts, a broader world and a confined space slasher. It’s fair to say that the sky watching crew prefers one of those parts to the other. We talk about the film in depth, try to venture into exactly what it’s trying to say, and inevitably turn some of our attention of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Inevitably, this episode also brings up the question “Is Matt Gamble going to have words with us?”

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Moore did write for 2000 AD, and at the same time as he was writing for Warrior. Pretty much any major British comic creator spent at least some time at 2000 AD. Gaiman, Morrison, Peter Milligan, Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons, and Frank Quietly all had stints there. Probably more that I am forgetting.